A place for couples dealing with illness to find resources and advice, hear stories, and discover support. Whether the illness is chronic or acute, the result of disease or accident, couples can learn strategies for coping with the changes illness brings into our relationships and our worlds.
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Sunday, March 15, 2009

Is Marriage Good or Bad for Your Health?

Is marriage good or bad for your health. According to the statistics in the article below, the answer is both. It's a surprising read!

It can be the fairytale that you have dreamed of all your life, or it can be an eternity of trouble and strife.

Because, according to research projects and studies, marriage can either be the best thing or the worst thing to happen to your health.

A new report suggests that being married can make a woman ill, with American psychologists claiming women suffer from health problems more than their husbands.

But the new report is just the latest in a long line of surveys, which have shown the institution can either be good for your health - with lower risk of illness and longer life expectancy - or can be bad for you in terms of stress, putting on weight and lifestyle problems.

Here are just some of the scientific reasons why being hitched can lead to marital bliss, or wedded hell...

BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH:

The most recent study was unveiled at a meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society in Chicago. It showed that from a research group of 276 couples, women were likely to suffer from increased levels of depression, as well as physical ailments such as heart disease, strokes and diabetes.

A study at the University of Missouri claimed that murder was a problem in marriages.

They found that women are more likely to be murdered while married, while a criminologist in Washington DC suggested that a drop in the US murder rate was due to the falling number of marriages.

With about half of all marriages ending in divorce, it's been proved in studies that divorce is bad for your health, with increased risk of physical and emotional health problems.

A turbulent Liz Taylor-Richard Burton style relationship, with rows and arguments, can also be bad for your health, according to virologists at Ohio State University. They found that rowing couples are more likely to suffer from viruses and high blood pressure.

In 1993, Dr Miriam Stoppard declared that: "Marriage is bad for women. Living with men seems to be a health hazard, they should come with a government health warning."

A12-year study into the health and lifestyle of British civil servants, published in 2007, claimed that an unhappy marriage could lead to increased stress and risk of heart disease.

A2002 study of 8000 couples by the University of Nottingham found that married men and women can pick up their partner's health problems.

Those married to a sufferer of asthma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, ulcers or depression were 70 per cent more likely to develop the same symptoms.

Co-habiting can be better for your health than marriage or single life, according to a study on behalf of Somerfield in 1998.

The study found that couples who move in together eat better and healthier than single people, but also better than married couples who have been together for a few years.

GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH:

A 2003 study of 1000 towns and cities across Scotland found that areas with higher marriage rates were happier than the average population.

The town of Kinloss, Moray, had the highest marriage rate at 66 per cent, and also the highest rate of happy people, at 80 per cent.

Married men live an average of three years more than single men, with the mortality rate for single men three and a half times higher between the ages of 30 and 59. The mortality rate for married women is also much lower.

Happy marriages are the healthiest, with married people having thinner heart walls and lower blood pressure.

Married people are half as likely to develop Alzheimer's as single people, according to a study by the Swedish Karolinska Institute.

A Swedish study of 5500 men in 2002 showed that married men are less likely to die from heart disease and strokes than their coupled friends.

The health risk for unmarried compared with married men widens in middle ages, according to a study by the Office for National Statistics in 2001. The study found that single men over the age of 45 are 23 per cent more likely to die of illness. Divorced men have a 20 per cent increase in health risk, and widowed men,30 per cent.

Dutch scientist Dr Inez Joung, at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, found that from a checklist of 23 major illnesses and health problems, from migraines and cancer to arthritis, married people were healthier on every score.

While other studies have found that rowing couples have increased health problems, a report from Sydney University in 2008 found that married rowing women have smaller breast cancer tumours than married women who row less.

Similarly, a turbulent relationship has been found to help women reduce the risk of heart disease and strokes. Women who bottle up their anger are four times as likely to die from such conditions.

A study at the University of California found that single men between the age of 19 and 44 are twice as likely to die as married men. They found a happy marriage can add five years to the life of men and women.

A study at the University of San Francisco found people in a relationship with a steady sex life are less likely to suffer from colds and the flu.

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About Me

In November, 1999 I was whacked with a mysterious chronic pain syndrome that took me out of my life. With the help of my husband, my dog, and a combination of western and alternative approaches, I have a new life that includes working, writing, mountain climbing, smiling, and managing pain. I learned a lot along the way, especially about illness and the couple relationship. I'm also a psychotherapist, a business consultant, and have written a book about couples and illness, which was published in March 2013 (Roundtree Press)

“Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.”Susan Sontag